† Multiculturalism: Jihad By Other Means: England’s Lord Malcolm Pearson had invited Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, to speak at Parliament about his 15-minute film, “Fitna,” but the British government refused him entry.  A Wall Street Journal editorial condemned the government’s actions as an “abdication of democracy and the rule of law”:

The British Home Office said his presence would pose a "serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society," arguing that his statements on Islam "would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the U.K." A Home Office spokesman added: "The government opposes extremism in all its forms."

In truth, the government is selective in opposing extremism, for example, allowing Ibrahim Moussawi, a chief spokesman for the Iran-financed Islamist terror group Hezbollah, to enter the country last May and address meetings organized by the "Stop the War Coalition." As insulting as Mr. Wilders's likening Islam to Nazism is, he doesn't call for violence, let alone terror. Nobody really thinks his presence will incite attacks on Muslims. Rather, the unspoken fear is that his visit will spark riots by Muslims.

Meanwhile in a New York Post op-ed, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty executive editor John O'Sullivan notes:

When the average Londoner reads in The Sun about how Abu Hamza turned the Finsbury Park mosque into a terrorist recruiting office, he doesn't join a mob outside the mosque threatening to burn it down. He mutters that the world is going to the dogs and turns the page.

But mobs of extremist Muslims have marched through London in recent years inciting murder. And Labor peer Lord Ahmed's alleged threat of disorder in this case - to lead 10,000 Muslims to prevent Wilders from showing his film in Parliament - was very plausible. So Wilders was kept out.

Don't just blame the victim - punish him. In effect, the government has enforced a fatwa on "Fitma" - without, as the hapless foreign secretary admitted, even watching the 15-minute film.

All this reflects an entrenched establishment attitude that the Muslim community is highly combustible and must be appeased. And, because Muslim extremists know this to be the official view, they're likely to keep inventing pretexts for threats and riots.

The Brits, asked to choose between multiculturalism and freedom, will choose by degrees to be unfree.

The most searing censure The Stiletto came across is this, from The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Schwammenthal: “This time, no fatwa was necessary. Two decades after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Salman Rushdie's murder, U.K. authorities no longer need instructions in Shariah law.”

† Chicago On The Potomac: Over the weekend The Chicago Sun-Times reported that on February 5^th Sen. Roland W. Burris (D-IL) sent State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie (D) a sworn affidavit to “supplement” his testimony before State House impeachment committee on January 8^th - before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) bowed to the inevitable and allowed him to be seated, reports The New York Times:

At the January hearing, Mr. Burris was asked whether he had talked to those in Mr. Blagojevich’s inner circle, including Robert Blagojevich, before he was picked about his desire to get the Senate seat. Mr. Burris told the House committee then that he had and cited one conversation from months earlier with Lon Monk, a former Blagojevich chief of staff. …

In documents first made public over the weekend, Mr. Burris disclosed that he had conversations with Mr. Blagojevich’s brother, Robert Blagojevich, and with several other Blagojevich advisers, including his chief of staff, in the weeks and months before he was appointed to the Senate. In the three calls, which took place in October and then after Mr. Obama was elected president in November, Robert Blagojevich sought Mr. Burris’s fund-raising help for his brother, who was then governor - help that Mr. Burris says he refused to provide.

Burris claims he did not intend to withhold this information from the impeachment panel, but that the questioners had moved on to other topics before he was finished with his answer:

“I responded to all questions that were asked of me by the impeachment committee in the time allotted,” Mr. Burris said. He added that his State House questioners should have returned to specific names had they wanted more details and that this was never a case of “trying to slip something by anybody.”

Burris insists he did not donate “one single dollar, nor did I raise any money or promise any favors of any kind for the governor.” But it wasn't for lack of trying, reports The Associated Press:

With his questionable appointment tarnishing faster than you can say “Blagojevich,” Burris could end up being a placeholder, his party electing to back someone else for the Senate in 2010.

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: You knew it was just a matter of time: Two competing iPhone apps that make fart noises, and one of them is raising a stink about the other infringing on its trademark, reports CNET News:

iFart Mobile … asked a court on Friday to rule that it can use the term "pull my finger" without risking trademark infringement claims by another iPhone fart app named, you guessed it, Pull My Finger.

InfoMedia, which developed iFart Mobile, filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in Colorado District Court and named rival Air-O-Matic as defendant. …

In its filing with the court, InfoMedia claims the term "pull my finger" is common English slang and a "descriptive phrase" and therefore not covered by trademark.

It looks like this lawsuit will be a gas, gas, gas.

† Putting The Cart Before The Horse: Junior Ben Raderstorf, president of student activist club Student Worker, wants to rename Boulder High School - founded in 1875 and Colorado’s oldest high school – Barack Obama High School, reports The Colorado Daily. His reasoning:

“Who wouldn’t want to go to Barack Obama High School?” Raderstorf said. …

Raderstorf … expected some people to view the proposal as “out there,” but a lot of schools have been named after presidents.

“This is no different than naming a school after Lincoln or Washington or Roosevelt,” he said. “There’s an Eisenhower Elementary here in Boulder.”

As for the criticism that it’s unusual to name institutions after a sitting president, Raderstorf said the idea is to honor Obama’s election more than his presidency.

“It’s not so much about him, but honoring the steps we’ve made and how much more progressive our country has become now that he’s president,” Raderstorf said.

The paper reports that Student Worker – which protested against reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in 2007 – first needs to get Superintendent Chris King to recommend that the school board take up their proposal to rename the school, which is usually considered “only when district restructuring creates a new school or in other extraordinary circumstances,” and then would have to convince a majority of the seven board members that “extraordinary circumstances” exist and are addressed by changing the school’s name.

BTW: This is the same high school that invites speakers on campus who encourage students to experiment with drugs and promiscuous sex, so the community appears to be far more liberal than most and even they think bestowing such an honor on Obama is premature. In an unscientific survey, The Colorado Daily asked whether the school should be renamed; 73 percent of the 530 readers who voted said, “No. The man's just weeks into his first term as president” and another 18 percent said, “Maybe. But give him four years to make the case first.”

And the paper didn’t have any trouble finding students who wouldn’t want to go to Barack Obama High School:

“Boulder High is part of our history as a school, and this doesn’t need to be brought to the school atmosphere.” - junior Maddie Davis

“Until he has done something as president, we can’t say he’s the greatest president there ever was, because he hasn’t done anything yet.” - junior Brody Jones

“I’m all for Obama, but really?” - junior Lauren Robb

The Stiletto agrees with Robb – well, except for the “I’m all for Obama” part – and thinks the paper’s copy editor should have italicized the “really” to accurately capture the girl’s incredulousness.

† Updates To Previous Posts (Global Warming Won’t Harm Great Tits): In an editorial, that cites the Audubon Society’s findings that bird species are migrating northward, The New York Times notes:

These population shifts make it look as though many bird species can easily adjust to a warming world. And some of these shifts may be opportunistic in nature — taking advantage of open ground and new food sources in regions that used to be snowed over in winter. But ultimately birds cannot migrate out of their habitats.

A boreal species pushed farther and farther north comes eventually to the end of the plants (which move far more slowly) that it depends upon for food. A grassland species cannot simply decide to become a woodland species

No one knows why the birds are migrating northward, and during the 40-years that the Audubon Society gathered this data scientists were warning of global cooling. The birds, apparently, did not know about the threat of global cooling and kept moving north. Global cooling is now regarded a scientific fad – as global warming eventually will turn out to be - so The Times ought to be more circumspect in discussing natural phenomena that scientists comprehend incompletely and imperfectly, and may not be characterizing accurately.